Cleaning Cat Urine With a Blacklight

Probably the worst smell ever is a skunk's odor but not far behind has to be the smell of cat urine. My brother-in-law had a few cats and he didn't keep their litter boxes clean so the cats urinated everywhere and when you walked into his place the stench of cat urine was overwhelming.

Thankfully most of us have better pet keeping habits than he did and keep our cat's litter box clean and tidy but sometimes we face the problem of kitty peeing or spraying where they weren't supposed to and we must clean up the urine.

Unfortunately, it is not simply a matter of cleaning up the cat urine and thinking you are done as there is a hidden part of cat urine that you cannot see with the naked eye.

Cats do not drink as much water as other animals and this makes their urine highly concentrated and very pungent smelling. And, cat urine is a very complicated substance made up of many bacteria strains. Some of these bacteria cause the putrid odor and some cause the stain that is almost always invisible.

If you clean cat urine with any typical household cleaning product you might think you have cleaned the urine up but in reality all you did was to clean the liquid part of the cat urine. The odor causing bacteria will still remain in the form of uric acid salts that bond to all surfaces and the smell will come back over and over. This is especially true if the area gets wet frequently as moisture will reactivate the urine crystals and this is why run of the mill household cleaners do not clean the smell but just spread it around even more.

In fact, cats for some reason like the smell of urine and will many times urinate in the same spot again and again while you try to figure out why they keep going in the same spot. Repeated cleaning really only worsens the problem as this tends to spread the stain even more.

The problem is caused by those uric acid salts mentioned earlier. They can't be washed away with cleaners or soapy water because of the bonding action of the salts. To completely clean cat urine you need an enzyme based cat urine remover. The enzymes in the remover will eat the bacteria present in the salts and remove the cat urine odor completely.

The biggest issue you face in cleaning cat urine is finding the right spots to clean. That is why you need a fluorescent blacklight to show where the stains are. A blacklight in a darkened room will make any cat urine stains glow brightly so you will know where to apply the cat urine cleaner and you will be able to use the light to check afterwards to make sure you have thoroughly cleaned the urine spot.

You can buy a blacklight at stores like Spencer's Gifts where they are sold for special lighting effects. A few cat urine cleaners will include a blacklight with the product which is a nice convenience.

Cleaning cat urine is something that can be done provided you use the right tools. A good quality commercial cat urine remover combined with a fluorescent blacklight will let you get rid of that cat urine smell once and for all.